AMD Zen/Ryzen thread

[Tony0945]

With the announcement that AMD's Zen will finally be on sale in March,http://www.ecumenicalnews.com/article/a ... /57883.htm, I thought it a good time to start a discussion thread on Gentoo on Zen.

Apparently, GCC will include Zen optimizations and some support will be in kernel 4.10, according to Phoronix.
Other reports from the Consumer Electronics Show say there will be several motherboards from Gigabyte, Asus and somebody else. From the pictures, it seems that there will be no PCI card slots, so I won't be able to move my HVR-1600 board and will have to find a new TV board or possibly USB device.

I've already moved to GCC 5.4 on the machine I'll be updating. I'll probably move to GCC 6 next month. It has an onboard radeon video chip, which is rather passe today. I'll have to buy a cheap low power video card, possibly an R5. I don't game, X and mplayer for broadcast TV are all my video needs, hence they are modest. My PS is an Antec EA-500D, which is six years old. The specs are good, but I'm thinking I should buy a new PS because the caps won't last forever. I'm satified with the Antec EDG that I bought for a recent A8 build. I'll probably buy a new one for the Zen upgrade, which will then replace the entire guts of the old MSI Athlon II. I'm using an add on Intel NIC because the 8169 version on my old MSI board doesn't work well will either the in-kernel 8169 or the ebuild 8168 driver. I hope Gigabyte puts a better NIC onboard or, I'll just have to continue with the Intel e1000e.

Gentoo is uniquely situated to make use of this new hardware as opposed to a binary distro. Who else has upgrade plans/questions?


EDIT: WARNING! The Ryzen instruction set is missing four instructions used by AMD bulldozer. Do not just move your hard drive or your install will be broken by illegal instruction faults! See https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Safe_CFLAG ... _.28Zen.29

At this time, my advice for bulldozer systems migrating to Zen is:
(Read the next 15 pages of this thread to see why.)

1. Edit make.conf

Code: Select all

	
CFLAGS="-march=k8 -mtune=genric -O2 -pipe"
CPU_FLAGS_X86="3dnow 3dnoext mmx mmxext sse sse2 sse3" # appropriate for k8

2. emerge gcc-6.3.0 or later, to support the Zen instruction set

2. Run "emerge -e @world --keep-going --with-bdeps=y" Don't know if the bdeps is redundant. do it anyway. won't hurt

3. Emerge and build kernel 4.11.1 or later. If you use useflag "experimental", Do not use CONFIG_MNATIVE=y, instead use CONFIG_MK8=y.
These choices are under processor type and features. After you have successfully moved to Zen you should rebuild the kernel as ZEN or NATIVE.

4. If you are now booting using Legacy BIOS boot. Do not move to UEFI until you have safely moved your installation, provided your new mobo supports legacy boot. It's OK to create UEFI partitions. You can still boot a UEFI partitioned disk as legacy.

5. Then proceed with your hardware migration.

6. After successful boot/running, edit make.conf to optimize your new hardware and again emerge -e @world. Some (me) would say to re-emerge gcc, libtool, and glibc first.

[khayyam]

Who else has upgrade plans/questions?

Tony0945 ... what is the sound of one bogomip clapping?

best ... wu-ming

[NeddySeagoon]

Tony0945,

Remember the original Phenom?
The power save bug where it down clocked when it wan lightly loaded and could not up clock again.
There have been other CPU bugs over years.

Rule 1. Never buy version 1 of anything.
You might even remember Windows version 1, which ran on an 8086. Unfortunately, with Windows loaded, there was not enough RAM to do anything useful.
Some might say that's not changed :)

I plan a new PC sometime, my main system is from 2009 but I'm in no hurry to get a Ryzen. Its just one of the options I'll look at, after the bugs are known and hopefully fixed.

Rule 2. See Rule 1.

[Tony0945]

A good argument, Neddy. This is like buying that new sportscar with the brand new design hot engine, rather than the conservative family sedan with the bulletproof history. You buy #2 to drive to work, take your family on vacation and such. You buy #1 when you retire and want a fling.

[chithanh]

I'm planning to buy a Ryzen CPU + AM4 mobo + RAM to upgrade my existing main PC which has a Phenom II X2 550BE.

But this is contingent on whether socket AM4 will support ECC memory, and if so, whether there will be any motherboards implementing ECC. (ECC is non-negotiable for me.) I asked AMD in their community forums about socket AM4 ECC capability. But they refused to answer, saying they cannot speak about unreleased hardware. But AM4 products are already available in the market, in fact I ordered an AMD A12-9800 + ASUS A320M-C last month for someone else's computer.

Way to treat your customers, AMD.

[stephan-t]

I also planning replace my old hardware pieces, and the new generation of APU already late.... When testing some benchmarks the new CPUs?

[ct85711]

I know I have been considering to get me a new system, where as I've been mostly an AMD person; I am considering on paying the extra money for an intel. Overall, I have regretted on getting an APU, it's been about the worst mistake that I've done for my system. Effectively, the APU is a gutted CPU that is 3/4 unusable if you have a discreet video card (due those cores dedicated for the GPU portion only but generates more heat for effectively nothing).

[Tony0945]

I've read that Intel isn't cooperating with kernel.org and that's why they are having difficulty with Skylake.

I am pleased with my A8, but it replaced an old Athlon64 with on-board Nvidia mobo graphics. No, it's not for a system with a graphics card.
Published benchmarks show it (my APU) as equivalent to my Phenom II X6. NO WAY! Not for Gentoo anyway, maybe for Windoze.

[asturm]

Effectively, the APU is a gutted CPU that is 3/4 unusable if you have a discreet video card (due those cores dedicated for the GPU portion only but generates more heat for effectively nothing).

It doesn't generate heat if it is not in use. However, it can be of use even if not for output to a screen, but for offloading workloads where it actually performs better than the CPU.

[Ant P.]

I'll wait for the alpha testers — Windows gamers — to uncover the worst problems. My biggest gripe about the Phenom II I'm using is... a minor power saving bug (the "C1E bug", I have to turn it off in the BIOS... but it looks like it might actually be fixed). I'm in no rush to upgrade to anything.

Whatever happens, I'm avoiding Intel for future builds. They've become synonymous with shovelware - Poulsbo was definitely not an isolated incident.

[Tony0945]

My biggest gripe about the Phenom II I'm using is... a minor power saving bug (the "C1E bug", I have to turn it off in the BIOS...

I've got a Phenom II x6 1090T. I never heard of this bug. what is it and what do you turn off? Maybe that's why I could never hibernate.

[Ant P.]

It's a bug in the older 4-core models where having "C1E" turned on in the BIOS causes timer interrupts to stop working, thus the system appears to hang when it's idle (and not getting input device interrupts). If yours had the same bug you'd notice right away, audio stuff in particular skips like it's swap-thrashing.

[Roman_Gruber]

Lol the ryzen hype.

Everyday a benchmark leaks, or a new feature. to get nerds going

I also felt for such a hype, april fool joke.

company announced 12" tablet, than i checked if it was already available, after a few months, the product was never sold. Just to tease guys.

Linux, steam fake linux has hardly any games. So I do not have to bother wtih new gpus / cpus that often. Only every 6 years or so...


I only read about products which are available, like those i3 overclock cpu.

When AMD finally sells those cups I will read the "newest" summary review to get an overview than

It doesn't generate heat if it is not in use.

I highly doubt that my not connected gpu in my 3610QM does not have any power dissipation.
I have one of the few notebooks with hdmi 2 because my intel gpu is hardwired to the lvds, without the intel gpu crap (lol hdmi 1.4 intel)

I highly doubt that the gpu can be turned off from my cpu. I highly doubt the ASUS bios does this on my notebook in the firstplace.

I do not need gpus in cpus. I never wanted those.


--

The proper terminology is power dissipation for semiconductors. I would never talk about heat in the first place!

[Tony0945]

When AMD finally sells those cups I will read the "newest" summary review to get an overview than

Well, I was going to buy a Skylake until the kernel team ran into a lot of problems that Intel didn't help them with. I see Intel as joined at the hip with Microsoft. My last Intel chip was my first, a 486DX-100, a great chip for its day.

[wrc1944]

After reading chithanh's post mentioning the ASUS A320M-C AM4 board, I did a search which lead me to:
https://www.techpowerup.com/229103/amd- ... m-c-tested where the comments section was pretty interesting.

I'm definitely getting zen/AM4, but one of my concerns is wondering just how good these first few AM4 versions from various manufacturers are really going to be able to run the later steppings of the Zen cpus, or for that matter, and even more important to me, the subsequent Zen+. I suppose as has become the norm, we'll be looking at some BIOS updates for some of the boards as new Zen revisions appear. I tend to agree with Neddy on not buying very first releases of new hardware, but for me that AM4 350 family is looking very tempting, depending on pricing, and how robust a given board is built, as it appears to be a very major upgrade from AM3+. Of course I'm taking the limited current info with a grain of salt, as we've heard it all before. One would think we'd start seeing AM4 board availability a little before zen, since you can use the Bristol Ridge excavators based cpus in AM4.

It's like AMD has strung me along for years with the AM2,3, and 3+ platforms for so long I just can't wait that much longer. I've literally become an old man waiting on AMD.....

Tony0945,
i'm also a Phenom II x6 1090T fan. Before I got the AM3+ 8320 8-core rig, I was running the x6 on my main Gentoo multiboot system (Gentoo as main distro, multiboot with 5-6 other distros, and windows xp, 7, and currently added 10). I "retired" the little budget board ($39) micro-atx MSI 880gm AM3/Phenom II rig to a "guest" status for kids/grandkids, and it's still going strong after all these years. Even still maintain Gentoo on it, and it runs an ~am64 system nearly as well as the 8320. This experience with even a "budget" board gives me hope that a quality mid-range board like the AM4 350 should last many years, and possibly hold on for Zen+ cpus (assuming they actually become reality) with a future bios update. However, I do keep remembering how sometimes hyped up future cpus sometimes don't ever come to market.

[asturm]

I'm much less concerned about CPU compatibility - mainboard vendors usually do a good job at it, you just pick the ones with the best track record of BIOS maintenance.

GPU driver bugs is a different matter, while the architecture of the GPU cores is nothing new there sure will be some adjustments necessary. For that matter, on a few office machines where reliability is more important than 10 or 20% performance in some benchmarks, I will order some tried and tested Bristol Ridge APUs. Yes, I consider that a more reliable option than what Intel is currently delivering.

[asturm]

I highly doubt that my not connected gpu in my 3610QM does not have any power dissipation.
I have one of the few notebooks with hdmi 2 because my intel gpu is hardwired to the lvds, without the intel gpu crap (lol hdmi 1.4 intel)

Hybrid graphics notebooks are the cancer, anyway. Most dedicated chips they use are only marginally faster than the APU itself. That said, HDMI 2.0 is still rather new in the market (at least when it comes to the usual chipmaking cycles) - I've always considered it the inferior option over DisplayPort, which within the same generation gives you much higher net throughput thanks to not wasting it on HDCP.

[wrc1944]

asturm wrote:

mainboard vendors usually do a good job at it, you just pick the ones with the best track record of BIOS maintenance.

Agreed. That's definitely a good practice if you're concerned about long-term support for contemplated cpu upgrades on your motherboard.

Another good page: https://www.techpowerup.com/229399/amd- ... st-4-years


More AM4 and Zen info:
https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Motherboa ... therboards

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Motherboa ... -Continued

http://wccftech.com/amd-bristol-ridge-a ... erformance (some interesting benches)

AMD Bristol Ridge A12-9800 Tested Against Kaveri A10-7870K APU – AM4 Platform Brings Faster Performance To Mainstream Users

UPDATED Jan. 25 2017 :

Biostar Shows Massive Array of AM4 300-Series Boards For AMD Ryzen Processors. A total of seven motherboards based on the AM4 socket were launched at the event. The motherboards utilize the Promontory chipset which comes in various SKUs. The high-end lineup makes use of the X370 chipset but there would also be a few B350 and A320 chipset products.

http://wccftech.com/biostar-am4-x370-am ... -kaby-lake

[Chiitoo]

Last December, after watching this part in particular of the live presentation over at YouTube, I went to their website [1], downloaded the Blender demo file [2], built Blender, and gave it a go.

Took my AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1090T about 110 seconds compared to their 35 or so.

Yes, I'm interested. :]

I have no idea if there could have been some settings and/or build options that could have affected things. I just built with whatever USE-flags I got, and then, in Blender, did nothing else but open the file and render away.

[1] Source for the Blender demo file: http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/new-horizon

[2] Blender demo file: http://download.amd.com/demo/RyzenGraphic_27.blend

[NeddySeagoon]

Chiitoo,

If that scales, you will be able to build libreoffice in 20 min instead of an hour :)
To quote a tagline seen in a SETI newsgroup ..

All computers wait at the same speed

[Chiitoo]

NeddySeagoon,

Mhm.

One of the reasons I'm somewhat excited about it. It seems like it would have been made for Gentoo!

I do quite a bit of testing of things like QtWebEngine (same'ish as Chromium) and the likes, so more compiling power is nothing but welcome.

[Roman_Gruber]

They should better increase the toolchain. There is fore sure room for optimizations. E.g. games are the best example where you can see how some work in compilers / software can improve the output.

I also do not get the point why guys use such hardware inefficent languges like JAVA.

--

Do not trust benchmarks. They are not really useful for a daily life, real life scenario.

E.g. those notebook review sites, just run their benchmarks, which are heavily biased towards one cpu manufacturer, gpu manufactuer.

A much better benchmark is compiling Box a vs Box b, the same packages. They are both optimized. The total time is than compared.

I'm interested in low latency / responsiveness of a box. I doubt that is anywhere covered? I still remember having notebooks when you used the USB 2.0 port, the box were basically hanging. Bus was probably maxed.

--

Those CPUS are nice, but nowhere is stated how much better, if that can be measured, a chipset, mainboard is from these generations.

CPU is one thing
responsiveness
RAM size,
access time regarding MEmory, data memory, network

I do not trust INtel, AMD, Nvidia regarding their promisses. I had bad luck with INTEL GPUs. I had bad luck with AMD chipsets regarding notebooks. Nvidia build in chipset gpus are basically a technology which is dated when you buy it.

--

I saw they are selling new AMD APUS? notebooks with the label 4 cores + 8 gpu cores. I want more than 4 threads on a desctop box. And i do not care for the gpu. the gpu should have enough power for now and future desctops, therefore a medium to higher gaming gpu is a hard requirement.

When you read those notebook tests you will see that these AMD gpus are far underpowered. When you consider the future requirements, these APUs should not really be bought.

I also dislike AMD way of naming their gPUS / CPUS / APUS. most are rebrands, and the naming is not that obvious, to classify what is a decent one and whats just low level entry hardware

[Roman_Gruber]

When AMD finally sells those cups I will read the "newest" summary review to get an overview than

Well, I was going to buy a Skylake until the kernel team ran into a lot of problems that Intel didn't help them with. I see Intel as joined at the hip with Microsoft. My last Intel chip was my first, a 486DX-100, a great chip for its day.

INTEL bug in my ASUS g75VW notebook. Thats from my point of view as a consumer with pure intel hardware. It's intel gpu related + UEFI related. which both intel has its hand in. DEad special keys.

I got a response to provide data to the intel guy at kernel.org. Than silence for over a year.

Intel had many broken cpu designs in past few years. Broken cpu instructions. The disaster where intel forced mainboard vendors to update thier microcode to patch out overclocking functionality of some cpus. Weird behaviour of their instructions.

The intel hoax with 35W T7xxx cpus and the AVX2 instruction. The power draw is far more than 35W with AVX2. When intel sells a 35W cpu, i expect 35W power draw max, for any cpu instruction, and not only for a few.

Manufctuterers should list power draw cpu for all instructions + mainboard + ram... Basically all marketing hoaxes, no value reflects real life values.

[Tony0945]

@wrc1944 The GIGABYTE AB350-Gaming 3 sounds good except for apparently not having a D subminiature output. I'd hate to buy a new display as well. My display has only D-sub and hdmi inputs. I've never used hdmi and don't know how to set it up. Or is it auto-magic.

I don't think a whole lot of Biostar but I did have one board that was good until the caps went bad. I've never a Gigabyte board fail.
However that Biostar B350GT5 looks good and it has a PCI slot so I won't have to buy another TV card.

I gather that the X370 chipset advantage over the B350 is only in graphics? I'm not interested in graphics, just number crunching and compiling power.

Edit: inputs not outputs. X370 not X#30

[NeddySeagoon]

Tony0945,

HDMI is automagic. You can fiddle with it a little but not a lot.

It will also get rid of the digital to analogue conversion to get the analogue video signal onto the cable and the analogue to digital conversion that the display must do - unless you still have a CRT display.
That gets you a much sharper image as one pixel in the video card is constrained to map to one pixel on the screen.